What then?
You may not find again
The tracks you left behind:
Impossible once more to relive the same beautiful dream
And, anguished, bear the burden of ensuing pain.
Winnats Pass
Not Cheddar Gorge, nor Gaping Ghyll,
Gouged by boulders brute and rough
Crammed down a valley, close by Peveril
Driven by ice that allowed no rebuff.
Inevitable, never still, but slowly forward,
A scrum of rocks ripping up the land beneath
Not knowing its destination, but only ever onward
Without motive, only primeval force and no belief.
The wound left deep and bloodless in the ground
Was scabbed and healed long years ago;
Grass skinned the soil and helped to make it sound.
If we had seen such brutal mayhem at its birth
Could we have known the outcome so sublime?
Would the onlooker have responded with just mirth;
To realise the healing power invested in the hands of time?
And now, the scree that cloaks the Pass’s side
Is all that remains in memory of such carnage done below
When the world was in its infancy and as yet untried
And mankind was but a dream and all was yet to know,
